The immigration debate is taking a sinister turn, and if we are not careful, it will end up defining us as a country.
Recently, while holding one of my regular MP surgeries, I spoke with a local resident, originally from India, who was concerned about her immigration status. She had lived in this country for over forty years, her children and grandchildren were born and brought up here, and she had worked for many decades in our community. In every sense of the word, she had contributed to our country, but her immigration status was Indefinite Leave to Remain (IRL). She had heard the recent rhetoric from some politicians, as well as comments in the media and was now concerned about what this meant for her future in this country.
Of course, my initial response was to reassure her—that, while the debate on migration was at its peak, she had no reason to be concerned. But further reflection made me consider just how honest or realistic my advice was, because in recent months, the debate on migration has shifted, and it is taking a sinister turn.
That same weekend, comments by Reform MP, Sarah Pochin, decrying it drove her ‘mad’ seeing adverts ‘full of black people, full of Asian people,’ made headlines. And she’s not alone in pushing such sentiment. Robert Jenrick complained that he had failed to see ‘another white face’ while visiting Handsworth in Birmingham. While my Kent colleague, Katie Lam, wants to deport legally settled families for the sake of ‘cultural coherence.’ What does she mean by ‘coherent’ I wonder?
And while some politicians play dog whistle with people’s lives and identity, they are opening the door to a type of racism that we have not seen since the 1970s or 1980s. With record numbers of NHS staff reporting racism in the workplace, reports of racially aggravated sexual assaults and an increase in racially and religiously motivated offences. I only need to go as far as my social media to be called a ‘p**i’ or be told here that I don’t belong here, because I am Muslim and not white. Those commenting have little interest in my family’s historical links to UK, through the British Empire and its legacy, which meant my mother was born British in Kenya, and my family worked in Chatham Docks. Or that three generations of my family are buried in Chatham Cemetery and that my own exotic birthplace, was the former All Saints Hospital in Chatham. Because what matters to them is my race.
Now I can already predict that there will be those who will be screaming incandescently as they read this, ‘but what about immigration -it is too high!’ and ‘what about the boats.’ Those are legitimate questions that do deserve political solutions, that this government must find. But we can’t go about answering those questions at the expense of the values that make this nation great, our resilience, mutual respect and tolerance. Let’s not fool ourselves.
Slowly but surely, we have been effectively boiled like frogs in a pot of hate. One misleading headline, a fake Facebook picture or story, an anonymous comment on Twitter – all read shared and liked hundreds of thousands of times over. Give it enough time and your uncle is convinced that if you have a Muslim prayer room in your house you don’t have to pay council tax. That’s not a joke; that is a real example.
Just over 10 years ago, the nation collectively looked inward when 5-year-old Aylan Kurdi’s body washed up on the Mediterranean shores. We are now in a place where people regularly comment gleefully when bodies are found dead at sea. These are dangerous times, if we allow ourselves to ignore the changing tide.
This article was originally published on KentOnline.